Unlearning Pain with Pain Reprocessing Therapy - Demonstration by Alan Gordon LCSW

View the full-length film at www.thismighthurtfilm.com
This is a live demonstration of a new treatment to reverse chronic pain called Pain Reprocessing Therapy, which uses a form of guided mindfulness called "somatic tracking" to re-process danger signals.
PRT was recently demonstrated to cure chronic back pain for 66% percent of people who were randomly assigned to it in an NIH-funded trial. PRT retrains the brain to unlearn pain through neuroplastic changes and fear reduction.
More info about the film, the study, and the treatment at:
www.thismighthurtfilm.com/pai...
We were fortunate to film a live demonstration with one of the innovators of PRT, Alan Gordon, LCSW, founder of the Pain Psychology Center. He was presenting at a conference with Howard Schubiner, MD called “Breaking The Pain Cycle” - Beyond Pain Management, at Providence Hospital in Southfield, MI. Check out Gordon's book, The Way Out.

[@RICKYDENNIS49]

I have lived with long term chronic pain due to lower back issues for over thirty years. This spinal tissue damage is still present. Big question. I have now watched a great many of these retraining the brain videos and similar treatments. The vast number of these videos talk about therapy and methods of adjusting the brain when the tissue damage is no longer present. My big question is this, Can these treatments help if the tissue damage causing this pain is still present ? A definitive answer to this question would be so very helpful. Chronic pain has dominated my life for over thirty years. Pain relieving drugs have come close to killing me on several occasions. Over the years I have tried so many third party treatments without success. Do I need to accept the pain and cope with life in the best I can or is there really a way for treatments like the one in this video helping. All advice and help would be very much appreciated.

[@ThisMightHurt]

@RICKYDENNIS49
hello! I'm sorry to hear about your lower back pain issues and the damage that is still present. It's not possible to answer specific people's medical questions in this forum. But I can say that it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the list of tissue damage conditions that leads to back pain (cancer, fractures, infections, extreme herniated discs) and those that most of the time do not (bulging disks, degenerative disk disease, sciatica, most other herniated disks, etc.).
If medical treatment has not resulted in eliminating the pain, then there is a good chance that neuroplastic processes are driving the pain, rather than damage. But an individual assessment would be necessary to make any conclusions.
You can learn about these parameters for assessing damage vs. neuroplasticity on two pages of our website:
HOW TO ASSESS PAIN FOR NEUROPLASTICITY:
www.thismighthurtfilm.com/how-to-assess-pain
BACK AND NECK PAIN RESOURCES:
www.thismighthurtfilm.com/back-neck-pain
Many, many people have been told a simple story by doctors that they have damage driving their symptoms, when the picture is more complicated than that. Wishing you luck with this process!
Kent
www.mindbodyinsight.net

[@YellowPineappleHoyas]

What if you actually do have something “structural wrong”? I assume this not work then, right?

[@ThisMightHurt]

Hi Liza, Thanks for your question! You're correct that this work is not recommended for people with pain deriving from structural injury or organic disease.
There is a catch, though, which is that the majority of patients with neuroplastic pain are *misdiagnosed* with structural problems (they're told they have a pinched nerve, herniated disc, stenosis, chronic lyme disease when that doesn't actually explain their pain) or they're given scary sounding diagnoses that *sound* like structural problems but usually are not (like fibromyalgia, POTS, irritable bowel syndrome, interstitial cystitis, complex regional pain syndrome, etc.). So, unless you have a structural diagnosis for your chronic symptoms like cancer, a fracture, or a muscle disease, it probably makes sense to learn more about this diagnostic and treatment paradigm.
A lot more info on pain reprocessing therapy at our site: www.thismighthurtfilm.com/pain-reprocessing-therapy-prt
And a list of all the different neuroplastic pain syndromes that PRT is relevant for is here: www.thismighthurtfilm.com/other-symptomswww.thismighthurtfilm.com/other-symptoms

[@ThisMightHurt]

Also, one former chronic pain patient, Michelle Wiegers, has talked openly about how she used this PRT paradigm to overcome Ehlers Danlos Syndrome: czcams.com/video/1MejYKeQ5aM/video.html

[@monkeybearmax]

@@ThisMightHurt Lyme disease is an ongoing organic infection as is autoimmune disease so how can pain be stopped until infection is truly eradicated or the auto-immune reaction stops? Autoimmunity isn't just pain its also sever rehabilitating fatigue and cognitive issues.

[@ThisMightHurt]

​ @monkeybearmax Hi, yes! You're correct about Lyme disease. For acute Lyme disease and late stage Lyme disease, pretty much everyone agrees on. Whereas with _chronic_ Lyme disease is it's more complicated, and there is a lot of polarization and sharp disagreements. Many practitioners of PRT and a related treatment, EAET, believe -along with the NIH and the CDC - that many people with chronic Lyme disease have medically unexplained symptoms (MUS), rather than an ongoing infection, assuming they received standard medical treatment for Lyme (typically consists of a few weeks of antibiotics). For people who are open-minded about exploring symptoms as potentially driven by neuroplastic, mind-body processes - most of the symptoms of chronic Lyme like pain, debilitating fatigue, cognitive dysfunction (aka brain fog), and so on- these can be addressed using principles of Pain Reprocessing Therapy and/or Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy.
Several people with chronic Lyme and other post-infection syndromes and chronic illnesses have recovered fully through brain retraining, but no treatment works for everyone. We wrote about chronic Lyme on our site here: www.thismighthurtfilm.com/other-symptoms/#chronic-lyme-disease

[@monkeybearmax]

@@ThisMightHurt yes I’m aware of the controversy but I’d say both groups are incorrect.
While It’s very difficult to know if it is a persistent infection or just post Lyme symptoms, active infections have a slightly different feel to them and in Lyme a def rhythm as they grow monthly or die.
Herx reactions are unavoidable if you have an active infection that you are treating and makes it easy to tell you if you’re dealing with something active versus relying on not so reliable testing to gauge progress.
Unfortunately NIH covered up their monkey trials for ten yrs that showed persistent infections after 2 mos of abx while people were denied care and died or became destitute so not the best folks for reliable Lyme info I’m afraid.
But glad to know this IS indeed applicable to true post Lyme symptoms without active infections. Will be passing along! Thank you!